William Blake Nurses Songs
T. S. Eliot once said of Blake's writings, "The Songs of Innocence and the Songs of Experience"... are the poems of man with a profound interest in human emotions, and a profound knowledge of them." (Grant 507) In these books of poetry and art, written and drawn by William Blake himself, are depictions of the poor, the colored, the underdog and the child's innocence and the man's experience. The focus of my paper will be on Blake's use of simple language, metaphors and drawings to show the two different states of the human spirit: innocence and experience. I hope to show this through two poems: the "Nurse's Song" of innocents and the "NURSES Song" of experience. In the first poem, the poem representing innocence, the nurse is in the background image as a pretty, young woman, sitting and reading by a tree. Her mood is peaceful and at rest "When the voices of children are heard on the green / And laughing is heard on the hill." (Blake 23) The drawing and the poem also convey a sense of peace and trust. The children are naive and vulnerable to the pain, the sorrow, and the evils of the perverted world; yet their faith in the fact that they are protected by the nurse, like a lamb by his shepherd, is c
Now that I have experienced through the eyes of the characters in the poems, I will work on not doing or going through the same things they did. I am sure Blake is partial to the nurse of innocence. By her giving in to them, she shows love and understanding for their knowledge of what is around them. The first line is the same as the first line in the Nurse's Song of innocence. Sexuality is the victim of repression, and the nurse in this case is the offender. The nurse herself trusts that the children are safe from perversions because of their voices and laughter. The first "Nurse's Song" has the voice of children as well the nurses and a narrator. The title suggests a happy song with the interaction of the outside world and the inside of her mind. The poem continues with the sweetness and innocence that a baby represents. Innocence that will not return to her as a morning would return to the sky. It suggests that the nurse's mind and her perceptions would be the only topic of the poem. This is a powerful statement in my opinion. In the poem of experience, the reader is faced with the immediate change of the title.
Common topics in this essay:
Nurse's Song,
Come Leave,
Infant Joy,
NURSES Song,
Songs Experience,
Infant Sorrow,
Nurse Song,
William Blake,
Songs Innocence,
Innocence Experience,
songs innocence,
infant joy,
nurses song,
change title,
songs experience,
infant sorrow,
nurse's song,
experience poems,
gone dews night,
dews night,
night arise,
winter night disguise,
poem line line,
dews night arise,
home children sun,
|
Acceptance Essays
